Dear Father and Mother
by Sparrow2000
Summary: Yes, it has my name. This is an old letter assignment based on WW1 that really kicked-off my writing skills. Rated for graphic scenes.


**A/N: Listen carefully. This was an old class project that I recently found and couldn't resist posting.**

**Warning: Slightly graphics images.  
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March 17, 1916

Dear Father and Mother,

Being a nurse in the war isn't easy. Soldiers are being brought in every minute. Some are brought in missing an arm or leg. Others suffering from the terrible poison gas, constantly in agony. Every day I hear machine guns, rolling like thunder, shooting our men. I would give anything to go out there and help Germany fight off the French at the western front. Alas, I cannot. I am a nurse and must tend to the wounded.

The front has gotten crowded with dead corpses. I was sent only once to the trenches to amputate a foot. When I was there, I saw dead all around me. Bodies on top of bodies, with rats eating their skin and organs like a bear eats its prey. The smell of rotting bodies mixed with smoke from bombs filled the air. Puddles and streams of blood and rain flowed throughout the trenches. Two soldiers escorted me to a bunker where I was to take away a young man's feet. The bunker wasn't too big. It had four bunk beds and a cot in the middle. The young boy whose feet I had to amputate was lying on the cot. He was very young, maybe only fourteen. He gave a look of pain, but also relief. Only one of his feet had trench foot. After I told him to try and relax, I started sawing his foot off. He wailed in pain. Blood was squirting everywhere and was oozing in my hands. Every so often, dirt trickled from the ceiling as the bunker shook slightly from a bomb exploding overhead. I stayed completely focused on the boy's foot while death walked through the war zone outside. I felt like I could practically taste death, like I was swallowing a bomb that would explode in my throat. I was almost finished removing the foot, when all of a sudden, he stopped screaming and wailing in pain and fell silent and still. I backed away into another soldier and stood there for a moment. In war, you don't have time for mourning, just giving a quick moment of silence. Then I gathered my supplies and was escorted back to the village.

On the way back, a bomb came out of nowhere and landed about twenty feet away. The two soldiers escorting me pushed me to the ground and covered me. I had never been closer to death than at that moment. It felt like time had slowed down. Seconds passed like hours. Another bomb brought me back to reality and I was rushed back to the infirmary. I didn't realize that when I reached the infirmary I would be in a cot. The next thing I knew, I woke up with a broken leg.

I have been in the infirmary for three weeks now, still listening to the thunder-rolling machine guns, still remembering the graveyard-like trenches and the young boy whose life was lost. Every night, when I go to sleep, I think of you both and dream of when I might see you again, but the war doesn't seem to stop. I am still able to help take care of the soldiers. Wounded soldiers are still brought in. One man was rushed in coughing up blood. He wasn't here long, but I saw in his eyes a feeling of happiness, that he was glad to no longer be miserable.

I hear over and over that victory is near, but it doesn't come. I ask myself over and over, how near is near? Is it tomorrow or next week? Everyone feels the same way. Death. Death is knocking on our doors, and we don't know how much longer we have. Another hour or day? I pray every day that the war will end soon, but it doesn't. Every day I hear death knocking, louder and louder, not knowing if I will ever see either of you ever again. I wish I could feel the warmth of your hugs father, to smell and taste your cooking mother, to hear your laughing, and to see your loving faces one more time. To once again run in the grass with our German Sheppard Brutus, and to see a war-free home with a warm and shining sunset. It has been so long since I felt you warm, inviting, embracing hugs. I miss you both and pray that I see you soon.

Your loving daughter,

Jennifer

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**Yeah yeah. That's my name. Get over it!**


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